How'd They Do That? - The Prisoner of Zenda

[jeffwolfe]

It looks to me like Colman-the-King is shaking someone else's hand. Colman-the-Londoner is carefully positioned to make it look like it's his arm reaching up, but it isn't.

[Ken Jennings]

That's what I first thought too...right-Colman's body is laid in optically, hiding the fact that some other guy was ducking down there in the shot, stretching out his hand.

Except for one thing: look how the right hand is holding a hat, which it hands to the left hand before the shake!

[pikeprof]

My wife says-look at the tree

[Amber0609]

Around the 7:11-7:13 mark, it looks to me like right Colman's head is eerily stationary compared to the movement of the rest of his body.

[Dobie]

That video also contains an example of something mentioned in another recent blog post.

[Bill]

I watched it a bunch of times without figuring it out, but I think Amber's observation has set me in the right direction.

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The break in Rassendyl's body isn't vertical, it's horizontal. The handkerchief in Rassendyl's pocket belongs to Colman, but not the pocket. The body from the chest down belongs to some other man, the exact same height as Colman.

[Ken Jennings]

Bill (and Amber) have it exactly right! Well-spotted.

Once you know what to look for, you can (barely) see the diagonal dividing line across right-hand-Colman's shoulder. (As Amber points out, it's especially obvious when the stand-in shrugs slightly to switch hands with the hat.) James Wong Howe says this was all done in-camera: most of the frame exposed with a stand-in at right, then the upper-right corner re-exposed with Colman in exactly the same spot. Howe says they did it 13 times before getting one where the match was more or less seamless.

The chutzpah behind this effect is astounding. You have to count on two different men lining up exactly, despite being filmed at two different times, and both having to make small movements as part of their performance. AND they leave the effect on screen for 18 seconds. There's plenty of time before and after the handshake to spot the trickery, but it's still invisible. Over fifty years before the heyday of digital effects!